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Friday, 27 December 2013

As my second year of film blogging draws to a close, I thought today was a good day to look back on some of the best films I've seen this year. Ahead of my 'Best of 2013' list which I'll publish in late January on my blog's two year anniversary, the list below is of the top ten 'new to me' films of the year. The list is taken from all of the films I've seen this year for the first time which weren't released in 2013.

Although I've seen a lot fewer films this year than last (278 as of 27th December, compared to over 365 at the same point in 2012), I believe that this list features comparatively better films than last year's.

10. Wings 1927. The first winner of what became Best Picture at the Oscars, Wings is a romantic drama that stands the test of time. Engaging leads and technical wizardry made it feel fresher and easier to watch than many films from the same period. Clara Bow's performance and the aerial photography are amongst the many highlights of this late period silent feature.

Sunday, 22 December 2013

I’ve watched a lot of great films
for the first time this year and an echelon below Citizen Kane and Man with a Movie Camera is a film like Easy
Rider. Written by actors Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper and directed by
Hopper it’s a motorcycle road movie about two long haired guys travelling
across America,
encountering intolerance and hatred. Released in 1969 against the backdrop of
the Civil Rights movement, the film chooses to focus on intolerance against the
freedom loving hippie movement of the same era but its central characters can
be used to denote any group or people that experienced hate and intolerance.

Produced independently and with a
budget of around $360,000, the film went on to become a huge mainstream success,
creating enormous profits and winning Hopper an award at the Cannes Film
Festival. It has since become a classic and a film that opened my eyes to the counter-culture movement of the 1960s, a movement that has traditionally been
overlooked by mainstream media. Dennis Hopper said about Easy Rider that the films that were being made at the time weren’t
about the America
that he saw and he knew and this film is just that. It’s about the America of the
youth, the hair, the drugs, the ideals, the freedom and the hatred.

It’s been a few weeks now since I
saw Nebraska, Alexander Payne’s monochrome
comedy-drama and I didn’t originally intend to write about it. But of all the
films I’ve seen in the last couple of months, it’s the one that has stayed with
me the longest. Nebraska stars Bruce Dern as Woody, a
grouchy old man whose moments of lucidity are swamped by his seemingly frail
mind. Woody receives a sweepstakes letter which tells him of a million dollar
prize win which he is determined to collect in person. Despite warnings from
his family that the prize is bogus, Woody is undeterred and eventually his son
David (Will Forte) agrees to drive across country to Lincoln, Nebraska
with his father to pick up the winnings. Along the way the pair stops in
Woody’s small hometown where he reconnects with the past.

At this late stage in 2013, Nebraska
stands as one of the best films I’ve seen all year. It’s an absolute delight,
merging neo-realism with caricature in a way that I’ve rarely witnessed before.
It manages to be both grounded but quirky, serious and flippant and focuses in
the everyday side of America
rarely featured in Hollywood films. The
characters don’t moan about money while living in mansions or complain about
their dream jobs, these are Middle Americans, dealing with normal issues and I
couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy was one of those rarest of
comedies, a film that gets funnier the more you watch it and one that has so
many quotable lines that you’d laugh yourself silly before running out while reciting
them with friends. Like Airplane! and
This is Spinal Tap! it was a film
that you could introduce to friends and watch them fall in love with and watch
on a loop without getting bored. As a nineteen year old in 2004, that’s how my
friends and I saw it anyway. In the years since, the film’s star Ron Burgundy
(Will Ferrell) has made occasional appearances in adverts and the like as well
as a, let’s be honest, poor and straight to DVD Wake Up Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie which was compiled using left
over footage from the first movie. Now though, nearly a decade later the famous
New Team has finally assembled for a much anticipated two hour sequel.

I have an odd love/hate
relationship with Will Ferrell. Sometimes he seems like the funniest guy in the
world and his comic creations slay me. More than half the time though, he
really annoys me. In Anchorman his
Ron Burgundy character was always the former of these two Ferrells’ but
unfortunately for long periods in Anchorman
2 I found his greatest creation not just annoying but also dull. Annoying
and dull are two words that I’d also use to describe the film as a whole. That
being said, it is not without its moments and most of these come flying from
the gaping mouth of Brick Tamland (Steve Carell), the man who saves the movie.

Sunday, 8 December 2013

The Great Dictator saw Charlie Chaplin return to the screen
following an absence of four years since 1936’s Modern Times. It also marked his first true talkie, a departure
from the silent cinema which had for a time made him the most famous person on
the planet. From a script written in 1938-39, The Great Dictator satirised the Fascist regimes of Italy and Germany and in particular the
moustache stealing Adolph Hitler. Despite pre-production condemnation from
Hollywood and a Hitler appeasing British Government, the film which was
financed solely by Chaplin himself became a huge critical and commercial
success, no doubt spurred on by its staggered release in 1940-41 by which time
Europe and then the whole world was at war.

Chaplin who had by this time
become increasingly political in his film making can be considered as somewhat
of a visionary in his approach to the film. While writing the script much of
the world was seduced by Hitler and saw him and his Nazi Party as the antidote
to the spread of Communism. His strong, conservative Germany
formed a vital buffer between the Soviet Union
and the West and became an important trading partner once again. While many
politicians were unable to see beyond Hitler’s immeasurable charisma, Chaplin focussed
his film on those in the firing line of Hitler’s new Europe,
specifically the Jews.

Anyone who knows me personally or
has read my review of Park Chan-wook’s 2003 revenge thriller Oldboy will be aware that the Korean
film is one of my favourite movies of this young century. Its initial success
and cult status in the West meant it was only a matter of time before a Hollywood remake reached the cinema. Talk of a Steven
Spielberg-Will Smith project came and went and instead, ten years after the
original, we’re hit squarely in the face with Spike Lee’s Oldboy, a sanitised and surprisingly safe American version. The
film is based on the Korean movie rather than the original Japanese Manga but
contains subtle and often baffling differences.

The story is of Joe Doucett (Josh
Brolin). Doucett is a man on the verge of losing his job, a man who spends too
much time with the bottle and not enough time with his wife and young daughter.
Following a heavy night of drinking he awakens in what appears to be a motel
room. It soon becomes apparent that his ‘room’ is in fact a cell, a cell in which
he will spend the next twenty years of his life locked up for a reason that he
cannot fathom. While incarcerated Joe is framed for his wife’s murder and sees
his young daughter adopted. Inexplicably after two decades Joe is released and
given the task of working out who kept him prisoner and why he was framed for
the grizzly murder of his wife.

Wednesday, 27 November 2013

Sometimes it only takes a few
frames to realise that you’re in for a treat. This was the case for me with
Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 masterpiece The
Passion of Joan of Arc. It is however a film that I’d put off watching for
a long time. Despite my interest in silent cinema and all the great things I’d read
and heard, there was something about what little I knew of the film that put me
off. Perhaps it was the subject matter (more on that later) or the idea that it
would be a depressing and/or dull watch but either way it took a good five
years from my first whiff of the film to actually sitting down to watch it.
What a silly boy I was for those five years. Like many other renowned films
that I’d put off viewing it is of course a superb movie that features some of
the best acting, editing and camera placement I’ve ever seen.

The film tells of the
imprisonment, trial and (spoiler) execution of Joan of Arc (Noah’s wife) who
claimed divine guidance and lead France to several important military victories
during the Hundred Year’s War before being captured by the English and tried
for heresy, all by the age of nineteen. The film draws on the five hundred year
old transcripts of the trial and indeed original documents form the basis of the
script.

Wednesday, 4 September 2013

Rush, the latest offering from director Ron Howard, is an
exhilarating and dramatic biographical action movie set in the glamorous world
of the 1970s Formula One driver. Being a fairly faithful retelling of true
events, the movie focuses on the careers of and rivalry between Austria’s Nikki
Laura (Daniel Bruhl) and Britain’s James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) in the mid
1970s during which the pair were the cream of the motor racing world. Though
the movie begins in 1970, the main thrux of the plot is the 1976 F1 season
during which the pair’s rivalry and willingness to put themselves in the path
of danger reached an all time high before the season reached a dramatic climax
in Japan.

I need to mention very early on
that personally I’m a huge fan of Formula One and have only missed around three
races since my first in 1994. I love the history, the strategy and the
technology of the sport and would rank it amongst my biggest passions. Because
of this I was worried that my judgement of the film would be clouded but I’m
confident that the film is good enough that my love of its backdrop hasn’t
affected my enjoyment. In many ways the movie reminded me of the sublime BAFTA
award winning documentary Senna in
that although both movies are about F1 and F1 drivers, they could be about
anything. It’s the story and characters who make both films great. They could
be set within any discipline.

Monday, 2 September 2013

I stopped reviewing every film I watch towards the end of July and have gone from 30+ to (last month) four reviews a month. While I haven't really missed writing about the movies I've seen, I wanted to make sure I at least wrote something about every single one so that I could keep some sort of fluidity in my blog. So here are my very brief opinions of the films I've seen since I stopped reviewing everything.

July

Rebel Without a Cause

James Dean can’t play a teen. Great acting, interesting,
super cool. 8/10

Maniac

Better than the average slasher. Interesting. Far too
grizzly for me. 5/10

Double Indemnity

Quintessential Noir. Beautifully made, gripping. 8/10

Frances
Ha

A cross between French New Wave and Woody Allen. Annoying at
first but I warmed to it. It made me want to live the BoHo life. 7/10

Sunday, 1 September 2013

The fact that Jurassic Park
is twenty years old makes me feel older than I’d like to think I am. It’s hard
to believe that it was two decades ago that a wide eyed seven year old me took
a trip to the local cinema for what was only my second cinematic experience at
the time. The film was a sensation with children, adults and critics and became
the highest grossing movie of all time. Although I loved the film, there was a
part of me who secretly hated it as it opened children’s eyes to the dinosaur
world, something which I naively thought only I liked. Suddenly all my friends
had dinosaur toys too and it annoyed me that they’d stolen my thing. It was the
equivalent of that cool, underground band you like appearing on TV and going
mainstream. Despite my anger over the film taking dinosaurs mainstream, it was
pretty much the best thing my seven year old eyes had ever seen.

Twenty years, two sequels and
about a dozen viewings later I heard that Universal were bringing Jurassic Park back to the big screen in
3D. Part of that sentence made me very happy but I was rather sceptical about
the ‘3D’ element. I was even offered the chance to join a critics screening in New York City of all
places, six months ago while on holiday there. I was unfortunately unable to
make it though as I’d left my girlfriend shopping somewhere and knowing that
she never notices her phone ringing and wouldn’t be able to make it to the
theatre in time anyway, I had to decline, something which was deeply
disappointing. All was not lost though as although I had to wait nearly half a
year, I was eventually able to see the film on one of the largest screens in
the country, the IMAX screen in Manchester.

Wednesday, 14 August 2013

Man with a Movie Camera is a 1929 experimental documentary film by
Dziga Vertov which upon watching for the first time earlier this week,
instantly entered into my top ten films of all time. The film contains no plot,
characters or actors and its only discernible arc is the depiction of the
passing of a day in Soviet Russia. It captures the essence of life in 1920s Russia thanks
to over 1,700 shots and scenes of everyday life as well as the life of machines
and industry. The film is famed now, as it was on its initial release, for its
revolutionary and still bold editing and filming style. It’s difficult to put
into words the wonders contained within this hour and seven minute avant-garde
piece but I hope that my brief description will attract new people to it.

The film opens on one of the more
surreal shots which pepper the film in amongst the more traditional fare. We
see a cameraman setting up his tripod on top of a giant camera which forms the
ground upon which he stands. This is the first of many examples of double
exposure used in the film and the camera trickery extends to the boundaries of
what was possible in the late 1920s over the next hour. I remember watching
Buster Keaton’s 1924 movie Sherlock, Jr
recently and being enamoured with his mastery of camera slight of hand but
Keaton’s noble efforts look like potato prints to Vertov’s Mona Lisa.

Sunday, 11 August 2013

Sharknado doesn’t deserve a full review. At a time when I’m only
writing reviews for about one film in eight that I watch, I’m not going to
spend too much time dissecting the finer points of the plot, acting and
direction of this film. The movie is the latest in a long line of terrible
B-Movies commissioned by The Syfy Channel and made by The Asylum film studio.
The films appear to be title first, plot second affairs which owe a great debt
to the B-Movie classics of the 1950s and 60s but lack their antiquated cousins’
charm and ideas. As I can’t be bothered discussing the film in depth I’m just
going to write some sentences that come into my head when I think about this
‘film’. In honour of the movie they will make little sense and won’t interest you

It’s rubbish.

The action begins with characters surfing on a beach without
waves.

Different beaches are used from shot to shot.

In one early scene, it’s obvious that a pod of dolphins are
being filmed instead of sharks.

Something is happening in Hollywood. Something
which isn’t new but is becoming more apparent with each passing year. Studios
are throwing vast sums of money at films in the hope that the sheer amount of
razzmatazz on screen, couple with stars and overblown effects will prize people
from their sofas and towards the cinema. The problem with this is that the
films are becoming ever more formulaic and uninspiring as studios attempt to
attract the maximum number of people to their films. It’s the same with most
art forms that the more broad you make your product, the less exciting and
unique it will be. Mumford and Sons
might outsell Goat but only one of
those bands sound like a Saturday night pub band that got too big for their
cowboy boots. When I think of the studios that are producing the type of big
budget, low risk films I’m discussing here, the one that springs to mind first
is Disney.

Disney obviously have a tradition
of making family movies and as such you aren’t expecting gore or thrilling
twists but they’ve managed to entertain generations of people simultaneously
for decades while maintaining their wholesome image. They also have a strong
tradition of borrowing stories from other sources but appear to be on a run at
the moment of producing the blandest of films which are amongst the most
expensive in history. Alice in Wonderland,
Oz the Great and Powerful, John Carter and now The Lone Ranger are all films which make use of established, much
loved characters in films which Disney have sucked all the life and fun out of.
The problem they’re really facing though is that they’re no longer guaranteed
$600 million if they plough $250 million into a movie and not only that, the
films themselves are dull and don’t even warrant a second viewing.

Tuesday, 6 August 2013

Belleville Rendez-vous, known as The Triplets of Belleville outside of my
native United Kingdom,
is a 2003 Oscar nominated animated feature, written and directed by the
mastermind behind the similarly styled 2010 Oscar nominated The Illusionist. The film tells the
surrealist story of a doting grandma who trains her grandson to compete in the
Tour de France before he is kidnapped by the mob. Determined to return him to
his native France, she
tracks him to Belleville (modelled on New York City) where she
and her obese dog befriend the Belleville Triplets, a formerly popular music
hall act.

As well as reminding me of
director Sylvain Chomet’s quite and masterful feature, The Illusionist, the animation is also reminiscent of classic Disney.
The still backdrops and wildly grotesque characters remain faithful to the
animation found in the likes of Dumbo
or Pinocchio but are darker and drawn
with the animator’s tongue firmly in cheek. The animation also displays modern
touches but these are counteracted by the wonderfully realised mid twentieth
century setting. There are even flairs of psychedelia present and side
characters such as an overly foppish waiter and henchmen who seem conjoined at
their ridiculously overgrown shoulders wouldn’t look out of place in a dehydrated Yellow Submarine.The surrealist nature of the animation also
extends beyond the character and occasionally creeps into inanimate objects too
where it is befitting of the plot.

Friday, 26 July 2013

I've been running this blog for about twenty months now and in that time have written close to 600 films reviews, attracting a number of loyal and occasional readers. I'm immensely grateful for every single visitor I receive, it means the world to me that someone would stop by and read what I think about something I'm passionate about. The problem is, that passion has been fading for some time now and I've reached the point where I no longer wish to continue.

The final straw came this morning after I watched Rebel Without a Cause for the first time. I really enjoyed the film and came to write my review as usual but it didn't feel fun. It felt like a chore and that's not how I want to spend my time. I initially started writing about film as a hobby, and grew to love it over the months but recently my passion has waned and I feel like my writing has become uninteresting and sloppy. I can hardly criticise a film maker for making a film I didn't enjoy if I don't have the ability to sum up what was wrong with it in an interesting and coherent way. My thesaurus is being stretched to breaking point and I feel as though I've run out of things to say.

Thursday, 25 July 2013

Dead Man’s Shoes is a psychological revenge thriller, co-written
and directed by the toast of the British critical community, Shane Meadows.
Writing with Paul Fraser and Paddy Considine, who also stars, the film focuses
on the return to a small northern town of an ex-soldier who reappears after his
little brother is humiliated by a group of local drug dealers. The film opens
with little back story and reveals itself through the use of grainy, black and
white flashbacks, building a picture of the events which lead up to the current
plot as it progresses in ever more violent and sadistic ways. It saves its
biggest and best reveal until close to the conclusion in a feat of wonderful
storytelling which put a delicious cherry on top of an already appealing
cinematic cake.

Although Shane Meadows is
considered to be one of the brightest talents in UK cinema, I’ve never really found
myself that blown away by his films. I can appreciate his style and especially
the way in which he gets his films made but they’ve never done anything for me.
This changed with Dead Man’s Shoes
and instantly became my favourite film from a director I hadn’t really got
until now. Not only do I think it’s one of Meadows’ best but I’m struggling to
think of a better independent British film from the past decade too.

Wednesday, 24 July 2013

Having dipped my toe into the
murky waters of the French New Wave with Breathless last week, I’m now ankle deep but the water is no clearer. I enjoy exploring
new cinematic avenues, whether it be silent comedy, Italian horror or Korean
thrillers but I’ve never had so much difficulty in expressing myself with the
written word as I’m having while trying to compose my thoughts about the films
of Jean-Luc Godard. My Life to Live
or Vivre sa vie in its original
French is a film in twelve chapters about a young Parisian woman who dreams of
becoming an actress but is drawn into prostitution when money becomes ever more
illusive. Anna Karina, Godard’s then wife, stars in the central role and puts
in a mesmerising performance in a film which I struggled to enjoy but couldn’t
take my eyes off.

From what little I’ve seen of
Godard’s canon, I think it’s fair to say that he’s a director with an eye for
beauty. The images he crates are sumptuous and filled with splendour despite
the slightly crinkled, low budget style of film making in which he partakes. Breathlesswas amongst the best looking
films I’ve seen while My Life to Live
exerts its beauty in a steadier, more measured manner, lingering on beauty
rather than allowing it to rush by. At the centre of all this is Anna Karina
herself, a woman whose eyes flash at the screen in such a way as to make her
audience melt.

Tuesday, 23 July 2013

“Buongiornoprincipessa!” Two simple
words that bought a huge smile to my face during a film which has more
emotional peaks and troughs than a very emotionally peaky troughy thing. Life is Beautiful or La vita è bella in its original Italian
is a passionate and multi award winning comedy-drama set in Italy during
The Second World War. Its dark themes are counterbalanced with some delightful
comedy and a sweet story about a man trying to protect his young son from the
harsh realities of the war. Italian Jew Guido (Roberto Benigni – also director)
is a wildly imaginative and romantic soul who woos a local woman in amusing and
inventive ways. Fast forward a few years and Guido and his wife Dora (Nicoletta
Braschi) have a cute little boy called Joshua (Giorgio Cantarini). When Guido
and Joshua are taken to a work camp by the Germans, Guido puts in tireless
effort to hide the truth from his son, telling him that they are playing a game
for points in which the winning team will win a real life tank.

Life is Beautiful really is beautiful in of itself. It’s one of the
sweetest films I’ve seen and is amongst many people’s (including my Dad’s and
girlfriend’s) favourite films of all time. Not only is it a good-natured story
but it’s also very bold. Upon its initial release it faced some criticism for
making light of the Holocaust but personally I don’t think it does anything to mock
that horrific event or undermine the suffering of the millions who had to
endure abysmal treatment under the Nazis and their collaborators. Instead it
displays the triumph of human spirit and the deep love of a father for going to
great lengths to protect his son.

Sunday, 21 July 2013

Tony Scott’s 1998 thriller Enemy of the State was the first film I
ever bought on DVD. Though that disc has since gone walkabout, I remember going
into my local Woolworths to buy a different film (an 18 Certificate whose title
I can’t remember) but was told by the lady on the checkout that I didn’t look
18 and had to choose another one. Being around 14 I panicked and grabbed Enemy of the State, attracted by the
picture of that guy from The Fresh Prince
of Bel Air on the cover. I remember enjoying the film all those years ago
and marvelling at how modern it was. Unfortunately it hasn’t aged particularly
well.

Will Smith plays D.C. Lawyer
Robert Dean who becomes embroiled in a conspiracy and high profile
assassination following a chance meeting with an old acquaintance from college.
Without knowing it, Dean takes into his possession a video tape containing
footage of the murder and is tracked by rogue NSA official Thomas Roberts (Jon
Voight). With nowhere else to turn, Dean tracks down a shady communications
expert called Brill (Gene Hackman) with the hope that he can clear up the mess
he finds himself in.

Sabrina is a fairytale love story set around themes of rivalry and
class. Sabrina Fairchild (Audrey Hepburn) is a chauffer’s daughter, living on a
large Long Island Estate. For some time she’s been in love with the rich and
careless David Larrabee (William Holden) who barely notices her. After two
years studying in Paris,
the grownup Sabrina returns a beautiful and sophisticated woman and David falls
in love. The couple’s relationship threatens to derail a big merger for the
family company so David’s brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) decides to woo the
girl himself before packing her back off to Paris.

This film is one of several in my
girlfriend’s DVD collection that I’ve been meaning to watch for a while.
Hepburn is her favourite actress but it was Sabrina
I chose over other films because of the male stars. I’ll happily watch anything
Bogart and Holden are in but have to say that I was a little disappointed with
this film. The stars failed to gel on screen and a little reading tells me that
Bogart was unhappy for the duration of the shoot with both director Billy
Wilder and his co-star Hepburn who he believed needed too many takes to get her
dialogue right. There was better chemistry between Holden and Hepburn which
isn’t surprising as the two began a brief affair while shooting the movie.

I started to really get into
cinema when I was at university after first watching a couple of Martin
Scorsese’s early movies. I was dumbstruck by the guerrilla style of Mean Streets and easy flow and strange editing of Taxi Driver as well as the way that both
movies captured a time and place which although I’d never personally
experienced, felt familiar. In the near decade since then I’ve expanded my
cinematic experiences and ventured down many genre avenues, finding much that
to like. It’s taken me to my late twenties though to venture towards The French
New Wave, a period and collection of film makers who inspired those early
Scorsese pictures perhaps more than anything else.

Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless or À bout de souffle in its native France
is one of the most famous examples of the New Wave films which steamed across
the Atlantic in the late 1950s and into the 60s,
influencing the next generation of American directors. The influence follows a
similar pattern to British rock music of the period as Godard and his
compatriots François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer and others were themselves being
influenced by what they saw in American cinema. It’s almost as though the
French put their own spin on what they saw in Hollywood and then this was subsequently
appropriated and re-Americanised by ‘movie brats’ of the 70s.

Saturday, 20 July 2013

In the late 1920s film stars,
directors and producers faced a dilemma. 1927’s The Jazz Singer had opened the world’s eyes and ears to the
talkies; movies with sound and the revolution had taken off quickly, brushing
former silent stars aside and ushering in a new era of spoken dialogue.
Arguably the biggest star of the silent era was Charlie Chaplin. His films had
been hugely popular in every corner of the globe, from London
and Los Angeles to Leningrad
and Lahore. His
universality came not only from his popular and identifiable Tramp character
but because people from any country could understand the language of the film. Each film’s themes and jokes worked in any
language and were loved by all.

It was because of The Tramp’s
universality as a silent character that caused Chaplin to shun the talkies for
a decade after they first became the norm. City
Lights was his first film produced after The Jazz Singer and he stuck to his guns, despite outside
influence, and kept The Tramp silent. The movie’s opening scene gently mocks
the new medium at a statue unveiling. The City Mayor proudly strides to a
podium to dedicate a new statue and when he speaks an amusing Donald Duck type
noise is emitted from his mouth. His lady wife then takes the stand with similar,
higher pitched results. To me this is Chaplin’s way of proving his point to the
English speaking world. We can’t understand what the characters are saying so
how would his fans in France,
Russia or Brazil
understand him if he spoke? With this opening scene we not only have our first
laugh but also a taste of an ever maturing Chaplin, a man who isn’t afraid to
express his opinions on screen.

With the final instalment of ‘The
Cornetto’ trilogy, writers Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright have bought us a film
about what it means to move on and grow up. It’s an apt theme as the film
itself is by far the most grown up and mature work the pair have produced so
far. Pegg stars as Gary King, a man-child stuck in the past who brings together
his childhood friends to attempt a re-enactment of a fateful night over twenty
years ago when they tried but failed to complete the ‘Golden Mile’, a twelve
stop pub crawl through their home town. Although the friends are unsure, they
accompany Gary
but what starts as a trip down memory lane, turns into something quite
unexpected when it is revealed that the people of Newton Haven have been taken
over by an unknown force.

I’m not a huge fan of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the other films in this loose
trilogy but I found them both entertaining. I personally think that The World’s End is the best film of the three but probably isn’t the
funniest. It’s a more measured, thought provoking film which strangely evokes
parallels in the audience’s lives while providing entertaining moments along
the way as well as the odd laugh. Pegg and Wright appear to have recognised
that their audience has grown with their films and they suitably include themes
which you wouldn’t find in their earlier work. The movie reminded me of Toy Story 3. That film included ideas
about ageing and one’s place in the world after the fun and laughter of the
first two films. This instalment is pitched in a similar way.

Wednesday, 17 July 2013

Based on a French comedy called Le Dîner de Cons, 2010’s Dinner for Schmucks is a politically
incorrect screwball comedy. Featuring likeable leads and an overstretched
central idea, the film stars Paul Rudd as ambitious financial executive called
Tim Conrad. After impressing his managers, Tim is invited to an exclusive
dinner which he hopes will lead to a long overdue promotion. The only catch is
that each guest must bring a plus one, chosen for their ability to compete for
the prize of ‘biggest loser’. Tim’s in two minds about attending the
insensitive dinner but when he literally runs into the sweet but simple
squirrel taxidermist Barry Speck (Steve Carell) and thinks to himself, what’s
the worst that could happen?

Despite being a fan of pretty
much everyone in front of the camera in this movie, it passed me by until now.
I remember its release but the trailers and reviews did nothing to pull me to
the cinema. It’s not a film I’m gutted to have missed three years ago but I
came out the other side thinking that it was an average comedy which was short
on laughs and story but enjoyable nonetheless.

Monday, 15 July 2013

With the recent release of the,
lets be honest, disappointing Monsters University,
I thought it was a good time to bring you my Six of the Best… Pixar Features.
Disney Pixar has been my favourite film studio for about five or six years,
since it suddenly dawned on me that all of the great animation I was seeing was
from the same imaginative studio. I’ll make it clear right now that this list
has one major fault and that is that of fourteen feature films to date, I’ve
only seen twelve. The ones I’m missing are Monsters.
Inc and Cars 2. I fully expect
from what I’ve read that one of those films would be in this list. I’m also
pretty sure that one of them would be absent. So, just to clarify, I except
that this list is perhaps not a true reflection of the studio’s output but I’ve
seen the other films at least once and in some cases several times.

For a change, this list won’t
just be a list of six but I’ll order them. My favourite film will be at number
one (as ordering is traditionally written). So without further ado, here are my
personal Six of the Best… Pixar Features.

The Edukators is a sociological thriller about three young
anti-capitalists who get in way over their heads after a botched break-in.
Peter (Stipe Erceg) and Jan (Daniel Brühl) are a pair of idealistic young
wannabe revolutionaries, living in near squalor in the centre of Berlin. In the evenings
they scope out large houses in the suburbs which they break into. Rather than
stealing what they find inside, the pair instead moves the furniture and
expensive consumer items around, messing with the minds of the rich inhabitants
and leaving a note saying something along the lines of “Your days of plenty are
coming to an end”. They call themselves ‘The Edukators’. With Peter in Barcelona, Jan becomes
friendlier with Peter’s girlfriend Jule (Julia Jentsch) after the pair had
previously been rather standoffish with each other. Jule explains how her life
is being ruined by a debt owed to a rich man following a car crash and Jan
decides to do something about it, bringing Jule into ‘The Edukators’ without Peter’s
knowledge.

The Edukators is a fascinating thriller which bought out the old
Commie in me. I was on the group’s side, finding myself nodding along to their
rants about consumerism and third world debt while I sat on my leather sofa,
watching my flat screen TV. The film bought out something in me which I’ve lost
in recent years, my youthful anger at the world. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still
angry but these days my anger is focussed at religion and stupidity rather than
poverty and injustice. This movie bought that back.

Sunday, 14 July 2013

I can’t imagine having to wait
nine years for Before Sunset to come
around. Released nearly a decade after Before Sunrise, a film with a remarkable and original will they/won’t they
conclusion, the film picks up the lives of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline
(Julie Delpy) after their one night romance in Vienna in 1995. It should be
noted before I go on that this review may well contain spoilers for Before Sunrise so if you haven’t seen
that movie yet, beware. I saw Before Sunrise earlier today and the hour long wait between films felt like a
lifetime to me, so engrossed in the character’s stories was I. I can’t believe
that there are people who had to endure nine years of not knowing what happened
after Céline and Jesse went their separate ways.

The film opens in a Parisian book
shop where Jesse, now an author is answering questions about his latest book.
Towards the end of the interview he notices Céline standing in the corner and
instantly loses his train of thought. He manages to sneak away for a coffee
with his former fling before a 7:30 pm deadline to catch a flight. It’s on the
way to the café that we the audience have our hearts broken. The pair didn’t
meet in Vienna
six months after the end of the first film. They in fact haven’t seen each
other since that magical night nine years ago.

A chance meeting aboard a train
from Budapest to Paris results in a wonderfully constructed
whirlwind romance for two strangers. Jesse (Ethan Hawke) is travelling alone
through Europe when he begins talking to the
pretty French lady across the isle from him. That woman is Céline (Julie Delpy)
who is on her way back to Paris
after visiting her grandmother in the Hungarian capital. They strike up a
friendly conversation which continues in the dining car before Jesse’s stop in Vienna approaches.
Sensing a connection he suggests that Céline disembarks with him to continue
their discussion. She impulsively agrees and the duo spends the night wandering
Vienna
together.

Before Sunrise lacks any sort of plot but is nevertheless
beautifully written and structured. I never once wished for something to happen
besides the continuing conversation and discovery. The dialogue is deeply woven
and superbly delivered by two actors on top form. Their connection seems so
real that it’s hard to believe that the actors themselves didn’t end up
together. Nothing is forced and the conversations meander naturally while at
all times remaining high brow and intellectually stimulating. Occasionally
there is a lull in the engagement I had with the dialogue but this still works
as it’s how one would react when listening to any long conversation.

Between 2008 and 2009 a group of
mostly privileged, celebrity obsessed teenagers burgled the homes of several
celebrities, making off with over $3 million in jewellery, clothes, bags and
other designer accessories. The group coined ‘The Bling Ring’ were the subject
of a Vanity Fair article which forms the basis of this film from director Sofia
Coppola. The film focuses on the acts of burglary, what the teens wanted, what
they got and some of the consequences they faced when eventually discovered.

To me the premise sounded
interesting. I had no prior knowledge of the robberies and hadn’t heard of the
group until I began seeing trailers for the film. It looked to be a satire on
obsession with fame and greed and reminded me a little of the similar but
deeply flawed Spring Breakers. This
film annoyed me even more than that. I should state right here that I abhor the
fame hungry, greed inspired culture that some teenagers aspire to be a part of.
My girlfriend occasionally (often) puts on programmes like The Hills or E! News and
they make me so angry that I have to leave the room. There are few people on
the planet I despise more than those who seek fame and fortune without the
talent to deserve it. This film focuses on exactly those kinds of people and
appears to glorify their actions.

Saturday, 13 July 2013

Seeing Monsters University puts me in the strange situation of seeing a
sequel (or prequel in this case) before the original movie. Like a lot of
people I’m a huge Pixar fan but 2001’s Monsters.
Inc is one of two Pixar features which I haven’t got around to seeing yet.
The central characters Mike and Sully are so well known though that I didn’t
think my ignorance of the first movie would hamper my enjoyment of this one.
Thankfully it didn’t. Pixar managed to hamper it all by themselves.

Monsters University
takes us back to our central character’s college days where they first meet on
the campus of the University of the movie’s title. The ambitious and book smart
Mike (Billy Crystal) initially doesn’t get along with the confident and naturally
scary Sully (John Goodman) and their falling out leads to their expulsion from
Scare 101. The pair discovers that their only way back onto the course is to
enter and win the University’s Scare Games. To do this they must join a
fraternity but the only one that will accept them is a group of no-hopers. Will
they be able to shape themselves and their team into first class scarers or
will their dream of turning professional be lost?

Pacific Rim states early
that we always expected extra-terrestrial life to come from above, in reality
it came from beneath our feet. Following the opening of a giant crevasse, deep
under the Pacific Ocean, a series of monsters
christened Kaiju began attacking costal cities, flattening them and killing
tens of thousands. To halt the unexpected onslaught the world put aside its
differences and initiated the Jaeger programme which constructed giant robots
used as weapons to defend humanity from the alien invasion. The Jaegars are
piloted by two individuals who have their minds interlocked, each controlling
one hemisphere of the Jaegar’s brain. Slowly, we turned the tide of the battle.

When I first heard about Pacific Rim and
more importantly who was directing it, I was filled with excitement. Vague but
tantalising descriptions of giant monsters battling human built robots across
the planet sounded like an epic idea for a blockbuster but it also sounded
dangerously familiar. When I think of giant robots I think of Michael Bay
and those two words aren’t the sort to get me excited about a film. Thankfully
the director’s evident love of the monsters and genre and attention to detail
in the huge fight scenes raise this movie above the normal smashy, smashy, what’s going on type of summer Blockbuster.

Friday, 12 July 2013

Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath (titled I tre
volti della paura in his native Italian) is a trilogy of short horror
films, presented as a single feature. There is nothing to tie the three films
together aside from being bookended by a rather funny and tongue in cheek Boris
Karloff who also appears in the middle film. Like much of Bava’s work the
film’s original Italian version differs greatly from the more widely seen
American release and there’s a fantastic comparison feature on DVD releases which
highlights the differences in score, props, dialogue and even ordering of the
film. Personally I chose the Italian version to watch.

The Italian version is a little
gorier and features a lesbian subplot which is absent from the American
release. Bava’s choice to package the films in one feature at first feels
strange but to be honest, I don’t think any of the stories could have been
successfully stretched to make a feature in their own right and it gives a
chance for some terrific tales to get a release.

Thursday, 11 July 2013

1955’s The Night of the Hunter was the first and sadly last film to be
directed by famed theatre and screen actor Charles Laughton. Though panned by
audiences and critics on its theatrical release, the film has grown in statue
over the years and is now widely regarded as a great work. Featuring
expressionistic touches and unsettling themes, the film stands apart from the
safer, noir tinted thrillers of its day. The plot features a villain so wicked
that he scared me, an adult used to modern horror, nearly sixty years after he
first appeared.

Robert Mitchum plays Reverend
Harry Powell; a preacher turned serial killer who learns of a hidden fortune.
While in prison on a minor charge, Powell shares a cell with Ben Harper (Peter
Graves), a man serving a long sentence for robbery and murder. Before his
arrest, Harper was able to hide his loot of $10,000, telling his children but
no one else where the money was. Powell is able to track down the fatherless
family and attempts to get the secret from the children while hiding his intent
behind his squeaky clean, ministerial front.

Persona is the sort of film that I struggle to review. When
thinking about the movie today, all I could really say was that it was a bit
odd but I really liked it. I could probably end my review there. Persona is an example of a film that
tests my limited film knowledge and both my powers to describe, compare and
contrast. I might as well start somewhere. I’ve been reviewing films as an
amateur and very occasionally professional for a little over eighteen months.
I’ve been a real life human person for over twenty-seven years. Despite all
those months and years, Persona is
the first Ingmar Bergman film I’ve seen. There are a couple of his films which
I’ve been waiting for my online DVD subscription service to send me but Persona was lent to me by a friend and
broke by Bergman cherry.

The film begins with a wondrous
and surrealist section of flashing images which are spliced into footage of a
boy, stood alone in a room. The boy eventually turns to a book which is pretty
much the only item in the brightly lit, sparsely decorated room. The boy, the
book as well as the images appear at first to be a random assortment of things
but eventually at least some of the images can be viewed as pointers for the
story that is to follow. Others, like the often cut image of an erect penis are
harder (ahem) to explain.

Tuesday, 9 July 2013

Nominated for three Academy
Awards, 1972’s Deliverance is an
influential thriller set along the Chattooga
River in Georgia. For men from Atlanta set
off into the wilderness to take a canoe trip down a portion of river which is
soon to be hundreds of feet below a newly dammed lake. Their trip takes a
decidedly and unexpectedly dangerous turn when some of the locals take a
disliking to the party. Famous for a distressing scene of rape, the movie is
much harder than I expected and must have rattled censors forty years ago. As
well as the distress caused by these and other scenes, there is also great
beauty to be found in the landscape and it’s captured wonderfully by Director
John Boorman.

The movie features what we’d
consider today to be an all-star cast with Hollywood
heavyweights Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds leading the cast. Ned Beatty makes
his screen debut alongside Ronny Cox, also a first time screen actor here. The
acting is great throughout and the characters are well defined from the start.
From the very first scene the audience is made aware of exactly who is who and
what their main traits are. This helps to get the film off to a good start as
well as easing the audience in.

Monday, 8 July 2013

It’s rare that one gets to see a
film that cost $7,000 but that’s precisely what Primer cost to make. Primer
is a high concept science fiction drama that is heavy on ideas and doesn’t
pander to the mainstream. Using technical dialogue and realistic sounding
science, the movie doesn’t make any attempt to open itself up to the masses or
explain itself in layman’s terms. As a result, Primer is a film that is at times impossible to follow but when
it’s at its best, it’s a film that opens up some and explores some fascinating
ideas about causality, fate, consequence and friendship. Shane Carruth acts
almost as a one man crew with credits as actor, writer, director, producer,
editor and composer.

The plot focuses on the efforts
of four engineers who work for a large corporation but on the side produce
circuit boards which fund their own inventions. Two of the men break off and
develop a strange machine for which a purpose is difficult to ascertain. After
some preliminary tests they discover that a watch placed inside the machine
appears to come out with much more time passing than on the outside. Wary of
the concept and implications of their machine, they keep it a secret but slowly
begin to experiment with its possibilities with strict instructions that causality
must not be affected.

Sunday, 7 July 2013

The latest offering from the
darling of the British critical community Ben Wheatley, A Field in England is a psychological-historical drama set during the
Civil War. An example of a growing trend, the film was released simultaneously
in cinemas as well as on DVD, download and on TV. This multi-platform release
meant that on 5th July there was no excuse as to why anyone couldn’t
see it. Personally, I watched it on the free-to-air Film 4, the film’s primary
funder.

The movie blends genres and
styles but features a pleasing cinematographic style which oozes confidence.
The choice to film in black and white feels at first to be a misjudgement but
as it progresses; the beauty of the monochrome is exposed. There are some stunning
landscapes and close-ups captured which juxtapose the attractive, relaxed
landscape with the anguish and torment of the characters. Those characters
suffer from little development and much confusion but are lit and filmed with
utmost care and professionalism.

I’ve been writing little film
reviews on this blog for about eighteen months now. I’ve almost always written
a review within twenty-four hours or so of watching a movie but I saw The East nearly a week ago. Whether due
my brief illness, boredom of writing or lack of interest in the film I can’t
say, though I think all three contributed. The trailer for The East was one of the best I’ve seen in recent months. It gave
little away and felt edgy and interesting. The film however doesn’t live up to
the trailer. I’m a big fan of Brit Marling and thought that her writing and
acting in Another Earth were superb.
Here she crafts a script which is full of intrigue and expectation but fails to
get to the heart of the issues that she is focussing her attention on.

I won’t go into much detail about
the plot as some of the characters differ significantly from what I was
expecting. All I will say is that there is a group calling themselves The East.
They’re environmental terrorists (or freedom fighters depending on your
perspective) who use tactics which can be best described as being ‘morally
grey’ to right the wrongs done by large corporations. Brit Marling plays a
member of The East but begins to question the morals of both sides as she
uncovers more about The East, the corporations and herself.

Wednesday, 3 July 2013

McCullin is a little seen documentary about the life of famed
photojournalist Donald McCullin. Nominated for two BAFTA awards, the film
charts the career of its subject from his humble beginnings in poverty ridden Finsbury Park,
London in the
late 1950s, through his many and varied warzone assignments and towards his
later, peaceful retirement. The documentary is narrated by and features
extended interviews with the man himself and gives great insight into the reasons
behind his adventures as well as descriptions of often horrific events and how
he composed some of his most famous photographs.

For several years Don McCullin
has been my favourite photographer having stumbled upon an exhibition of his
war photography at the National Media Museum
in Bradford. I’ve since been to another of his
exhibitions in Manchester
and one of his many photographic books became my most expensive book purchase
ever at the second exhibition. I’d been looking forward to seeing the film
since its original release and was thrilled to find it on television late last
night as part of The BBC’s Insight series.